The portals between worlds did not hum with sound.
They thrummed with intent—woven threads of destiny coiling into spirals as vast as galaxies and as sharp as blades. Zhen stood before one now, his hand resting on the edge of a silvery disc suspended in the void between dimensions.
> [System Notice: Temporary Gate to Mirrorrealm Opened]
Realm Type: Inversion-Type Pocket World
Risk Rating: ★★★★☆
Mission Objective: "Investigate the fluctuations of the Sovereign Fragments. Sync if possible."
Zhen narrowed his eyes. "Mirrorrealm…"
Xuanyin had warned him that inversion-type worlds were unstable. In them, time could rewind. Truths could lie. Souls could fracture.
But one thing they all had in common: they mirrored something within you.
He stepped through.
---
✦ A World of Reflection
The transition was instantaneous. No falling. No tunnel. No light.
Just—
Stillness.
Zhen opened his eyes to a courtyard of pale jade, ringed by tall glass structures that shimmered like frozen waves. Sky and ground were indistinguishable—an endless plane of watery mirrors, rippling as he moved.
Then he saw her.
Or rather, versions of her.
Dozens of women in white robes, all with the same face—serene, unreadable, beautiful—moving in perfect mirrored rhythm across the courtyard. But only one was real. The others were illusions—or worse.
Zhen's voice cut through the veil. "You're the Fragment-Bearer."
All the mirrored forms froze.
And one of them smiled.
"You're late, Ascendant," she said softly. "The Mirrorrealm has been calling your name long before you bore the sigil."
She stepped forward, and the other illusions dissolved.
Her hair was silver like polished glass, eyes pure violet with rings of shifting script within. Every movement she made left ripples in the air, like she herself was only partially solid.
"I am called Yue Lian. My soul is fractured. My reality, too."
Zhen didn't respond immediately. His system flared with a ping.
> [Unique Fragment Detected: Mirror Sovereign — "Lianxue"]
Sync Compatibility: 94%
Emotional Thread: Locked (Unresolved Past)
Sigil Evolution Potential: +1 Tier with Soulforge Pact
Prompt: Establish Pact?
Zhen looked at her. "If we're going to fight what's coming… we'll need to trust each other."
She tilted her head. "Even if I may one day reflect your deepest fear back at you?"
"I've already met it," Zhen said. "And survived."
---
✦ The Soulforge Ritual
At the center of the realm stood a floating stone dais carved with an intricate pattern—a seal shaped like a lotus unfurling in three layers.
Yue Lian led him there and placed her palm in the center of the pattern. "The Soulforge ritual is not a contract," she said. "It's a melding. You'll see my truths. I'll see yours. No lies can exist in the forge."
Zhen stepped beside her, doing the same.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then—
> [Initiating Soulforge Pact]
Participants: Zhen / Yue Lian
Fragments: World-Breaker Sigil / Mirror Sovereign Sigil
Sync Integrity: Stable
Warning: Mental exposure imminent.
The world shattered.
Not violently—but gently, like falling snow made of memories.
---
✦ Shared Dreams, Shared Wounds
Zhen found himself walking through her past.
He saw a sky torn open by lightning—not natural, but code-lightning, fragments of language raining down. He saw Yue Lian as a child, hiding in a ruined temple, learning forbidden mirror arts from an ancient spirit sealed in glass.
He saw her weeping as her reflection tried to kill her, mistaking itself as the original.
He saw her chosen as a Fragment-Bearer, sealed away by her own world to delay her awakening—until now.
And then, Yue Lian saw his memories.
The shattered plains of his homeworld. His family, his isolation. The System awakening inside him. His first rank kill. His first betrayal. The Threshold.
When the memories ended, they stood facing one another, their hands still joined over the seal.
> [Soulforge Complete]
Bond Level: Pact of Dual Sovereigns
Shared Ability Unlocked: Mirror Reversal — Reflect any one fixed law or domain effect (Cooldown: 6 hours)
Sigil Evolution: Stage 1.5 (Merged Sovereign Attributes: +Reflection, +Causality Disruption)
Zhen's breathing was slow, calm.
Yue Lian was crying.
Not from pain, but release.
"I've never shared my soul before," she whispered. "And yet… it doesn't feel broken anymore."
Zhen nodded, his hand still in hers.
"We walk forward together now. Not as broken things—but as pieces of something stronger."
✦ When Worlds Listen
The Mirrorrealm was no longer silent.
As the Soulforge seal faded into the floor and the air grew still once more, subtle harmonies began to resonate—chimes without a source, echoes of memories not their own. The realm was responding to the pact. It recognized them now.
> [System Update]
Mirrorrealm Alignment Status: Linked
Realm Core Response: Active
Realm Guardian Protocol: Terminated
Special Zone Unlocked: The Vault of Reflections
A crystalline path unfolded ahead of them, forming in real time, each tile shimmering with translucent runes. Yue Lian turned, her fingers gently trailing Zhen's as she released his hand.
"That path leads to the Vault," she murmured. "It holds fragments of past Sovereigns... and truths that even I was forbidden to seek."
Zhen nodded, the weight of new power settling into his limbs like tempered steel. "Then we walk it. Together."
As they stepped forward, the mirrored tiles beneath their feet lit one by one, revealing glimpses of alternate Zhens—one who died on the Threshold, another who served the Void Sovereign, one who fell in love with Xuanyin too early and broke their fate.
Yue Lian watched them, silent. "The Mirrorrealm does not lie. But it doesn't speak plainly, either."
"I'm used to that," Zhen said. "I've lived most of my life with veiled truths."
She gave him a rare smile—this one touched with sadness.
"You're learning not just how to ascend, Zhen," she said. "You're learning how to carry the weight of possibility."
---
✦ The Vault of Reflections
The Vault doors towered above them—thirty meters high, forged of obsidian glass inlaid with silver veins that pulsed with residual soul energy.
But it was not locked.
As they approached, the doors opened soundlessly, revealing a chamber of infinite depth. Endless spirals of mirrored artifacts floated through the air—blades, tomes, hourglasses, shards of realm cores, all orbiting a central pedestal.
And on that pedestal rested a glowing orb—small, unassuming, but weeping threads of distorted light.
Yue Lian's face darkened. "That… that's not of my world."
> [Fragment Detected: Sovereign Origin Remnant — "Broken Thread of the Architect"]
Grade: Mythic++
Status: Inert, Fractured
Warning: Contains partial memory of the System's original creator.
Sync Potential: Unknown
Risk: ????
Zhen stepped toward it, but Yue Lian grabbed his wrist. "Wait."
Her violet eyes glimmered. "This might be what they are searching for. The hidden Sovereign sects, the black-cloaked hunter we saw in the Glass Horizon… They're not just after power. They're after the truth behind the System."
Zhen's fingers hovered over the orb. It pulsed once, like a heartbeat from another age.
"I need to know," he said softly. "If the System can rank everything... who created it? Why? And where does it end?"
Yue Lian didn't answer.
Because there was no answer—only questions buried deeper than dimensions.
---
✦ A Glimpse Beyond
The moment Zhen touched the orb, time ceased.
He was nowhere. And everywhere.
A voice spoke—neither male nor female, neither warm nor cruel.
> "So you've touched the echo of my regret."
Images flooded his mind.
A figure in white robes, faceless, holding a scroll that wrote realms into existence. Worlds birthing and collapsing like fireworks in the void. A weapon carved from a dying concept—his weapon, now resting on his back—falling from the Architect's hand into the chasm between realities.
The last image:
The Architect sealing something within a young child's soul.
A spark.
A seed.
A system.
> "To correct my failure… a ranker must rise who can defy the order I created."
The voice vanished.
Zhen gasped, collapsing to one knee. Yue Lian rushed to his side.
"What did you see?"
He looked up at her, eyes full of distant light.
"Not just where the System came from… but what it's afraid of."
---
✦ Interlude Ending: The Warning of Fractures
As they exited the Vault, the Mirrorrealm trembled.
Cracks formed in the sky.
From the rift above, a shadowed figure looked down—a being wrapped in runic flames, its eyes full of judgment and fury.
Yue Lian recoiled. "That's… that's a Sovereign Hunter!"
But Zhen stood firm.
Because the figure had no face.
Only a mirror.
And within it, he saw himself—older, colder, wielding a weapon that pulsed with chained lightning and ruin.
The reflection spoke:
> "The higher you climb, the more your other selves bleed through. Be ready, Ranker Zhen. Soon… you will fight a version of yourself that never broke his chains."